Products Evaluation

Muhammad Zeeshan, Mohammed Zafraan, Judah Chandra

Roles within our group

Zeeshan produced the ancillary tasks

Zafraan’s role was to edit the music video efficiently and precisely.

Judah completed the research-

Together we completed the planning which meant that it was done better, faster, and with a top quality finish.

Additionally, we helped each other if their was any difficulties so the overall production was a shared effort

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenged forms and conventions of real life products?

Before we even started to create a music video we had to know what a music video is.

A music video is a video accompanying a song. Within the modern age the music videos have now become a medium, not only for expressing ideology but also for marketing and commercial promotion purposes. An artist can gain fame and influence by simply making a good track and an efficient music video.

Music videos are music videos because they contain moving clips accompanied by music. We used and further developed this code and convention by using movie clips within our music video. The images and clips indirectly signify the power of the artist and the record label, if any, thus has a strong consequential effect upon the influence, publicity of the artist and record label, this is due to the fact that better influential and more famous record labels are able to attract better artists and sell more albums simply due to their fame.

Music Video

Plan

But that is not all there is to that, we had to then sort out the costumes and find the actors to work with us in our creation of our music video. This was solved by appointing duties to each member of the group to ease the stress and pressure upon each of the group member while shortening the time span of the production. We had to do this in order to complete the product and double check for any mistakes thus making the product more efficient in promoting the artists. A flawless media product gains better rating and is a better commercial tool.

Costume – Part 1

As we previously mentioned, costumes are an important part of the music as the codes and conventions of our chosen music tribe are to be followed and further developed to create links within our products and their origins within the music. Due to this ZEESHAN had to selectively choose our clothing to match the codes and conventions to further interest the targeted audience. This is because a product which is better efficient at following the codes and conventions is more likely to attract attention of the audience because the codes and conventions are made to increase the profit, thus a controversial product would only degrade our product.

Costumes Examples – Part 2

Certain clothing had to be worn to illustrate the background and profession of the actors (if any).

For Example –

Doctor – White Coats to illustrate the profession as it a typical stereotype of doctors to wear white coats.

Artist – Have hip-hop clothing

Hitch Hiker – Outdoor Clothing to better survive.

Costume and props (Part 3)

We also used the appropriate costume and make-up to portray a positive representation through clothing and behaviour.

Moreover if the costumes of the artist did not match the codes and conventions of the chosen music tribe, the entire music video would have been for nothing.

Doctor within a ward holding a baby. This is represented by the blue background which illustrates the colours of NHS while the baby in the arms of the doctor further enforces this notion of the actor being a doctor. This is because the codes and conventions of the not the music tribe but the stereotypical hospital and doctor were followed resulting in an efficient shot.

Body Language & Language

Moreover, Body language & Language is an extremely important part of our chosen music tribe. This is to identify the Music tribe and differentiate them from the others. Thus attention to this code was crucial. JUDAH tackled this problem by individually researching on it and ended up changing our way of talking, walking and dressing to gain the end achievement of creating a traditional music video which follows all of the codes and convention.

Types of Music Videos

Music Video Types are an interesting thing as they define the purpose of the music video. A concept and narrative based music video will contain a meaning within the music videos, music or movie clips while a performance based music video is generally for promoting and advertising the artist, brands, lifestyle and the record label. Zafraan decided to base our music video on a mix of concept, narrative and performance, as a mixture of themes always creates a better music video by having the advantages of all of the themes. This was a crucial decision; probably the most important because this is was the main factor within our decision making for what song we will use within our music video. After careful counsel with the group members, we decided to use Fort Minor – Right Now. This was due to the meaning behind the song, each of us could image the music video each time we heard the song. While Right Now carried significant concept and narrative values, it also carried strong performance potential; we used this to promote the artist by the use of expressive emotion, body language and costume.

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Effects

Finally, the effects and transitions used within our music video can reflect reality and emotions of the artist. For example a Grey scale is usually a symbol of a memory, thus the use of grey scale to illustrate memories makes the music video more efficient as it follows the codes and conventions much more competently, while a cut can represent a sudden change of mood, while also signifying and depicting an event similarly a fade can illustrate the vice versa; a gradual change of emotions and life.

Thus the effects Zafraan created were important as the correct use of effects could mean the difference between the efficient and successful music video and a failed one.

Pixilation was a problem we came across as the resolution of the camera could not be fixed. However we then used this pixilation effect to our advantage as this portrays the uncertainty in life as the camera blurs the shots which enforces the uncertainty in life.

Camerawork and editing

We used various angles such as High, low, and tilted, and extreme shots- e.g. long-shots or mid-shots to follow action and offer new perspectives of the narrative.

Additionally, we used Subjective or objective camera work for our Moving image. For example, a series of quick shots which energy and lots of things happening.

Adding on to this, Zafraan used transition techniques such as a cut/jump cut between 2 sections of the text and edited for some type of transitions, for a desired effect.

Consequently, the use of editing creates link between characters, music and the movie clips within the music video.

Lastly we used the notion of looking we learnt within our AS and progressed it within our music video and other products (Promotional Magazine & DVD Cover) to make the audience relate with the artist much more easily as they feel at the centre of attention when the artist in the Music Video/Promo/DVD Cover look at them.

Rhythm and paceThroughout, the video we kept a Steady rhythm which keeps audience content and reassured.

Setting/location

For mise-en-scene we used various scenes within the city to offer a real perspective to the audience

The setting changed depending on the scene to show transition of not only the scene, but life and narrative.

We used a variety of Colour to convey meaning to give a realistic, not an abstract view of the video.

As well as props, other aspects have symbolic importance and represent a positive Ideology to our chosen audience

Urban Street Area

Characters

The characters are wearing correct clothing to help the audience relate.

The way they move, speak and appear, have all been relevant to the song with open body posture. The only closed body posture was in the promotional cover when Zeeshan was crossing his arms to show dominance and control.

Especially to each scene, the actors are presented as belonging to setting and the stereotype of the actors.

Doctor with a traditional White Coat

Narrative

Our music video has a NarrativeWith various action Actions and eventsWith 3 uses of time within it:

Discourse- time taken to narrate events

Story time- real time of events

Time- summary- fadesWe also used Ellipsis- which establishes discourse time rather than story time. The

Viewer assumes what happens between cuts such as walking in the apartment then a cut to looking out for where the car went.

Various scenes are a realistic convention to captivate audience.Additionally, we used Stretch which is longer discourse time to show emotions. The

use of Zafraan’s Flashbacks for the chorus was a change linear progression of the text-; therefore moving away from realistic convention to allow audience to judge or gain perspective on events through flashbacks

Critical theory links

Judah made sure the product fulfils the Uses and gratifications theory as it is a Diversion from everyday problems,

The product creates meaning as the reader will read the magazine and create their own Personal identity by constructing identity from the characters in this media text. The song itself is about change which in itself is a powerful word indicating that life will never be the same.

Therefore, by reading this the viewer will be reinforced of personal values, models of behaviour, gaining insight themselves and challenging their own behaviour and values.

SOUND

The song used within our music video contains the potential to create a music video based on narrative, concept and performance.

Moreover the Non-Diegetic sound (music) had a rhythm just like any other song, thus the movie clips were planned to fit the rhythm and the lyrics.

Promotional Cover

Box Out

The box out is the fishing line of the both magazines and promotional cover. It advertises various freebies to the targeted audience due to the usually bright colouring and placement of the box out. ZEESHAN, however used the box out to advertise the artist and bands we were promoting thus developing the codes and conventions of the promotional cover. We found this during JUDAH’S research. Moreover, we found that magazines are stacked on shelves with only the left third of the magazine viewable. We believe this makes a significant place to place our box out, and as we embedded this code and convention, Zeeshan has created a much better promo with a higher rate of promoting the artist and selling lifestyles to the targeted audience. Similarly to what we have mentioned before, this continues the use of house style colour palette which has enabled us to create a better magazine as a repetition of these colours created a stereotype within the minds of the readers which automatically related these colours to our promotional cover.

Typography

Mast heads and Strap lines are basically for further interesting the audience into buying the Magazine which in turn advertise the artist as they have been featured within the magazine promotional cover. Furthermore, as we have found out a well placed Mast Head (which is mostly at the top of the magazine) followed by a strap line, this is enough to interest the targeted audience into buying promotional cover and thus the album. We developed this by finding a relevant font and built the mast head according to the genre chosen. We believe the font chosen is relative to the genre as it is interesting while still looking ‘heavy’ and ‘phat’ (both words mean really nice [slang term]). We used the Mast Head and strap line to relate the promotion cover not only to the artist but to the magazine which sponsored the promotion. This in turn increased the publicity of both artist and the magazine.

Also, other than the mast heads, text such as website addresses Zeeshan placed upon the magazine to promote the artist as the target audience will be tempted to find out more about the band, thus the provided information makes it easier for the audience to reach the artist which effectively increases their public relationship from such a small feature within the promotional cover.

Moreover, we developed the codes and conventions of the promotional cover by making the name of the artist band the large text upon the promotional cover which made the text more eye-catching, thus increasing the probability of the targeted audience reading the promotional cover. Furthermore, the large text used the correct colour to match the house palette. This made the promo more effective as the codes and conventions were matched to increase the efficiency of the cover. This will consequently make the promotional cover much better at attracting the audience and promoting the artist. During this, Zeeshan also used a simple font to increase the readability of the magazine, making it easier for the targeted audience to read the promotional cover. Due to this simplicity the correct messages were conveyed about the ideals and intentions of the artist while the simple nature of the text made it more eye catching as it can easily be read thus increasing the publicity of the band and increasing the amount of the in turn from the promotional cover sales.

Furthermore, the cover lines and puff pieces are for marketing the artist and their albums. We followed the codes and conventions by creating the cover lines and placing them within the left third of the promotional cover, increasing the probability of the targeted audience reading the promo and buying the album. However we developed & challenged the puff piece code and convention by using the logo of the artist to attract the audience.

The colour variation of the house style palette made the typography much more interesting to look at thus increasing the chance of the audience buying the album due to the promo.

Images

The main image of the endorsement is the image of the main band or artists, more the placement of the featured article artists or band images placed on the promotional cover. Judah found this as he looked through some magazines of our chosen genre and of other genres. For example, Hip-Hop Connection. Zeeshan used the main image of the promotional page to further enforce the ideals of this artist portrayed. However much research had taken place by Judah within the images of the promotional cover as they have to reflect the chosen music tribe by the correct clothing and body language.

This information helped us take the correct images containing the correct codes and conventions which related to the chosen music tribe of hip-hop. Moreover, due to the fact that the codes and conventions were followed efficiently, the promotion of the artist to the targeted hip-hop music tribe increased immensely as the targeted audience were able to relate with the artist much more easily.

DVD Cover

Images

Similarly to the promotional cover, size and proxemics of the images extremely important, Zafraan learnt this within his As Media and the research enforced his ideas about how we wanted to portray our artist to the public. The light also played an important part as we wanted to portray a relaxed happy artist. Thus the use of high key lighting within the photography was completely essential. This also makes the public image of the artist admirable as the light can reflect the sought after spotlight, thus artist and readers will admire and relate themselves with the artist. This is the desired result of the DVD production.

Typography

Typography plays, without a doubt a Major Part in the Persuasion Procedure, Making the Typography Bold and Eye Catching is very essential, but it must be balanced out from the Others like features, and Codes on Conventions on the Page. It Should Not ‘Steal the Show’ but simultaneously be Very Enticing. Furthermore, Zafraan’s use of different fonts allowed us to link the Font with the Title of the DVD Cover

Structure/Layout

The Layout is Very Important as it gives the Final Look a Professional one, if the Layout is all over the Place, The Whole Piece comes apart. Thus the proxemics of everything is extremely essential to make the layout work. Layout is also a Way to link the Different Components on the DVD Cover together, for example the images can be placed close to the text to compliment the text

The highlighted boxes above show how individual parts of the DVD Come together to make a single, spectacular product.

Colour

Colour is essential as it can denote meanings within the text and images. Colours are essential in the codes and conventions of the DVD cover as a colourful cover is more likely to attract the audiences and sell the promotion. While a black and white typography is less attractive than the colourful text. We however believe the fonts used with the black and white text can create an interesting yet simple effect which is also efficient at attracting the audience.

Logos & Accreditation

Logos are important as they relate the DVD to other institution such as 20th Century Fox; this can help the publicity of the artist and can help with the marketing and advertising of the artist. Moreover, Zeeshan believed the use of logos can further advertise the actual companies themselves thus increasing the public images as wealthy companies can represent the artist’s influence and power.

The accreditations are a crucial code and convention of the DVD cover. Judah wanted famous star personas & directors within our DVD cover accreditations to increase the fame and ratings of my product, which in turn makes it much more efficient.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The purpose of a music video is to promote the artist through the song of choice while promoting the actual music video. Zafraan believes this combination is effective because each of the text is supporting a single band using various codes and conventions of completely different products.

Music Video –

The music video is efficient at creating the public image of the artist through the use of effects, movies clips and music.

Movie Clips & Music within the music video are an individual and unique contribution of the music video within the combination of the main products and ancillary text. This is due to the fact that the text and interview magazine will go so far, while a moving image will depict much more of the artists' attributes.

Zafraan believes this makes the contribution leads a much more effective combination of products.

Promotional Cover

Promotional Cover

Use of Movie clips is a single matter, colours fonts and images a whole different one altogether. The promotion is extremely essential because the back bones of any artist are the promotional work done for him, this is important as the construction of the correct public image is essential. Judah wanted the promotional cover to contribute to the mix by the use of typography & images.

Typography

The Typography is important due to the fact that the right font is essential in relating the promotional cover and the artist to the relative music tribe. We were successful at this due to the research taken by Judah. This helped Zeeshan create a better promo as the Fonts, Colour & Language could directly relate to the targeted audience.

This font illustrates graffiti tagging, which is quite common within the hip-hop culture Graffiti Tagging is done by a spray paint, and is mostly use to illustrate ones Hip-Hop Tag Name, thus the name of such an action is Tagging.

Font

Fonts used within the promotional cover are important as we have mentioned previously, Zeeshan however had to ensure that all text upon the promo was of the relative music tribe while keeping the size relative to importance. The sizes were different to illustrate the importance of the each individual text. This helped by making the Artist name more eye catching through the combination of font, size and colour thus making the promo much more efficient at advertising the artist and the articles within.

Artist Name

The Artist name in Graffiti Font, typical of the hip-hop subculture

Colour

Colours of the font were equally important as the fonts themselves. Colours are essential codes and convention of the promotional cover as the denote meanings, thus had to be related to the music tribe while also conveying the correct meanings and message to the audience. Zafraan chose colours such as Gold and Red to denote certain meanings. Gold signifies wealth and power which illustrates the exclusive status of the artist depicting their rise of power and influence; this was chosen as it fit in the hip-hop music tribe conventions of ‘Bling’ (Slang for Jewellery). While red on the other hand meant resilience, this colour indicated the struggles and hard work the band underwent. This was exactly the image we were trying to create and were successful due to us following the codes and conventions which furthermore increased the ratings of the promo and heightened the fame of the artist.

‘Bling’ illustrated through the Gold and Silver colours used.

The colour signifies the fading memory of Tupac it is the same colour as the background and the main image

Images

Images within the promotional cover are one of the core codes and conventions of the promotional cover. Images were used as they illustrate a thousand things, thus this philosophy was used in combination of costume, body language and proxemics to create the perfect pictures to illustrate the artists individuality. Judah was successful at this to due the fact that the previous research and planning lent us a hand in the creation of the final promotional cover. Zeeshan chose the costume and proxemics were helpful in illustrating the belonging of the artist to the hip-hop music tribe while also promoting a life style to the reader.

Images within the magazine also have effects of saturation and hue; this is to make the images more interesting they appear to be faded. Zafraan came to do this because he saw the beneficial attributes of this effect as it made the artist someone who other artist looked up to. Moreover, the colour fading effect also conveys the idea of the artist fading away without an equal which further promoted them within the music industry. This in turn made the promo much more efficient in attracting the targeted audience.

DVD Cover

DVD Cover

The DVD cover is an interesting piece of work as it represents the individual artists themselves. This is due to the fact that the imagery created through effects and filters are extremely efficient in attracting the audience which is a compulsory code of the DVD Cover. Judah followed this code through the conventional way through manipulating images of the artist themselves and a piece of work Zeeshan contributed to the group, which made the DVD cover much more authentic and interesting.

Images

The Images used within the magazine were chosen through the collaboration of the group and picking the images through the quality and concept of the image. This in turn made the image much more than an image, resulting in the artist becoming icons of the music industry due to the correct meaning illustrated through the right image and the right effect on the image.

Image Effects

As we mentioned before the saturation and hue effect had really interested and attracted Zafraan, this resulted with most of the images containing the mentioned effect. Moreover we tried to create a link within our ancillary text and music video to further make the promotion a success as the targeted audience will easily relate the promotional cover to the DVD and the DVD to the Music video.

The crimson on the and text and the capes of the Spartans relates the colours to the battle of Thermopile.

Typography & Logos

Through Judah’s research we found out that logos and text are as important as the images in the DVD cover. The narrative summary was used by Zeeshan to attract the audience into buying the DVD cover, while the text was simple and plain, it was easily read by any member of the audience and the group. This made it more efficient in illustrating our meaning.

Logo

Zeeshan created the logos which attracted the audience through signifying the institutions involved within the production of the DVD. For example the fame of a company such as Fox 20th Century Institution could help better promote the DVD as they are well known for block busters and classics. This helped the DVD cover gain publicity within the targeted audience, while other logos such as 1080p HD logo further signifies the quality of the DVD making the marketing process of the DVD much easier due to better value of movie clips.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

We have learnt that Audience feedback is extremely important in determining the outcome of each product. Audience feedback is important due to the fact that certain flaws within your works and designs can only be spotted by other while the variation of answer also increased the quality of our product. This is due to the final products being suited for a wide range of targeted audience thus increasing the product sold, which indirectly and directly increases the fame and publicity of the artists.

Moreover, audience feedback is also crucial for Judah’s research as he learned what is within the minds and hearts of the modern audiences, this helps in the creation of a better product because the product will be made to specific specifications thus resulting in a product which is popular and sought after.

Audience feedback

DVD cover Most critical, “The overall effect was great and my first initial impression was that it was a professional and an official DVD cover due to the main codes and conventions addressed as well as the logo’s which are very realistic. Great cover 5/5!”

Audience feedback

Promotional cover. Most critical, “The advert is brilliant and interesting and as a Hip hop fan I am very interested to find out more about this band Fortminor. The cover was sleek, stylish and captivating and I can’t wait to visit the website and see the DVD and music video”

Audience Feedback

Music video. Most critical, “What can I really say? WOW it is sooo good. I mean the scenes are really realistic and the narrative is really interesting with the unfortunate stories how people are dealt with life- which in reality is unfair and the music video perfectly depicts and reflects that.”

How did you use new media technologies in your construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Technology is now at the heart of our every day lives, from mobile phones to computer, similar to this every stage in our construction contain use of media technology ranging from softwares to hardwares.

During the Construction stage of our products Zafraan used the internet surfing technology to get inspiration from other professional media producer whose product matched or criteria. We did this to further widen our thoughts and ideas and this is a sort of audience feedback but instead the audience feedback is in the actual products of the professionals. Internet allowed us to use other facilities such as search engines, video sharing websites etc to help Judah’s research and help Zafraan and Zeeshan produce the products. However we kept our hands clean of plagiarism and used the internet as a mean to gain knowledge and information which helped us progress further.

In addition soft wares such as InDesign and Photoshop eased our burden while creating a product such as a promotion cover. These soft wares allowed Zeeshan to manipulate images to such his desire and design a product which all of the members of the group contributed towards by creating smaller pieces which connected into a single large product. We also used the previous mentioned technology and new technology such as a word processor to create audience feed back questionnaire to maximise the products likeability within the targeted audience.

Moreover in the productive part of each stage, technology such as Green Screens and Lights helped us create much more dynamic images simply by clicking the camera.

The green screen helped us during the editing within Photoshop by allowing us to easily manipulate images; this is helped as such techniques decreased our production time. While the light set the mood by decreasing or increasing the brightness on the character illustrating happiness or sadness. Moreover, Zafraan used new digital cameras allowing high resolution images to be created simply by clicking a button. This increased the overall quality of the image and of the products as the clarity and quality of the image reflects the qualities and attributes of the artists themselves.

Similarly, the technologies such as Microsoft PowerPoint created a more creative and interactive perspective of evaluation, this software allowed us to manipulate text, colour, placement of text and relative images. As we have mentioned before, the interactive perspective of the PowerPoint allowed a more interesting and creative effect as the examiners can simply link all the information together, simply by clicking the mouse or pressing space.

Further more, because we used technologies such as In Design within out As Media we decided to use the technology again to illustrate our progression in skill and ability. Also the abilities we gain within such softwares are a perk, which helps us reach the summit of our ability. Similarly the use of blogger within the As Media is exceptional however to progress is to gain knowledge and new abilities with which we can present our work much more easily. We decided to use the Word Press to illustrate our coursework for our A2 Media. Thus illustrating our progression as we developed from Blogger to Word Press, which consequently further demonstrates our abilities and skill.

Uploading Video

We decided uploaded our music video on YouTube. This is because YouTube is a casual video sharing website. However due to heavy copyright restriction in Youtube we had to give the rights to the owners of the music (Fort Minor) to stop YouTube from deleting our videos.

Furthermore we installed two links within our blogs to the music video in case once stopped working and the link was dead. We also had a hard DVD copy of the music video made in case non of the links were working.

This planning helped us overcome obstacles which might be present in the near future.

Finally, the use of technologies was simple, to aid students such as us in reaching the heights of our abilities, to push our imagination out of any barriers which may confine it. We believe this will help any student and examiner have a more enjoyable time working and marking. Moreover as technology evolves from time to time, the adaptive capabilities of students are shown. We believe all this can be reflected within our work.